Shipping a Dress Suit

When mailing a suit, be sure to pack it as carefully as possible to keep it wrinkle-free.

There are many reasons why someone would want to ship a dress suit. They may be moving and sending their boxes to their destination. They may be mailing a suit as a gift to someone else. or they may be sending a suit to be tailored or looked at by a professional for fashion purposes. Regardless of the reason why the suit is being shipped, it's important to keep it in as good a condition as possible. It's possible to ship a suit while minimizing wrinkles and keeping it in wearing condition.

Things You'll Need

• Box
• Shipping tape
• Shipping label

Instructions

1. Choose a box that is large enough to put the suit in without scrunching it up, but not so large that there's tons of extra space for the suit to move around in. A wide, shallow box is a better choice than a deep box with too much space. Fill the box with packing peanuts until there's just enough room left for the suit.

2. Fold the suit pants at the seam and put the top half into the box, letting the legs hang out of the box for the time being.

3. Fold the suit's dress shirt so that the sleeves fold in and cross each other. Lay the dress shirt on top of the pants in the box.

4. Pull the jacket inside out and gently push one shoulder into the other shoulder, keeping the lapels straight. To keep the shoulders from getting wrinkled, place balled-up plastic bags into them. Put the jacket into the box on top of the shirt.

5. Fold the bottom half of the pants over the jacket.

6. Close and seal the box with shipping tape. Write a shipping label and attach it to the box.

Tips & Warnings

• Determine how much the package is going to cost to ship by plugging the package information into the Postage Price Calculator on USPS.com. According to the United States Post Office's website, a package can't be shipped if it's over 70 pounds, which means that shipping a suit shouldn't be a problem. However, the cost to ship it will be dependent on how much the package weighs; a postal worker can give an exact quote.

• Sending mail to a college student who lives on campus is always tricky. There is so much mailing being sent and distributed that it's easy for a package to get lost. Parents who are sending a professional suit to their son while he's away at school should wait until the first couple of weeks of the semester have passed and include the student's full name and mailbox number on the shipping label.

References

• USPS: Classes of Mail
• Bates College: How to Mail a Package To Your Student
• USPS: Postage Price Calculator
• USA Today, Travel Tips: How to Pack a Man's Suit in a Suitcase